If your pre-drive inspection and start-up routine doesn’t involve hand-cranking a starter, adjusting a choke, pouring gas into a makeshift fuel tank, and water into a half-exposed radiator — all in order to awaken a truck that’s rusted out after decades of use — then you’re not off-roading as hard as you think.
Or at least, you’re not really roughing it as much as the off-roaders in a Soviet era dump truck that was featured in Tekniq’s YouTube channel. The ZIL chassis cab truck is likely around 60 years old, and, yet, is still kicking, happily going about its business slogging through wet sand and fording through streams:
The rusty machine appears to be a dump truck version of the ZIS-150 or ZIL-164, which would possibly make it a ZIS-MMZ-885. That model would have been outfitted with a trough that could be tipped to 48 degrees and carry a payload of about 7,700 pounds. That’s a lot of sand, which the intrepid owners of the old ZIL seem to be moving by the truckload.
It’s surprising that the truck can off-road so adeptly through sand and streams despite being a rear-wheel driven machine — with next to no tread left on its tires, for that matter. Unless it is, indeed, a 6×6 model. Just before start-up, we see the driver turning a wrench at the axle, which could tell us something about its traction. The truck is powered by a 5.6-liter inline-six that hardly makes 100 horsepower, though its torque comes on low at about 2,400 rpm.
Still, the ZIL goes about its work in style, sporting green, yellow, and red paint on its remaining body panels and bumper. At first blush, the truck seems to be hanging on for dear life, but when you see it in action, it’s clear that there are another few decades left for this working truck. Its sole remaining fender floats over the front right tire like an avocado half that’s been scooped clean.
Inside, the ZIL is just as battered and worn. In the front passenger seat, there’s a gas tank that rides next to the driver, strapped to the passenger door frame. Most of the truck’s dashboard is empty, and the five-speed manual transmission is exposed. You can see clear to the ground as the truck lumbers ahead, the inline-six letting out a low growl. But the thing runs and drives; it even off roads with the best of them. What more can we ask of the old truck than that?
